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Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

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Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#281

Post by gnopgnip »

supernova87a wrote: post #55

Now this part is getting a little too carried away. It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with. It is another (and overstepping imo) for Ebay to restrict individual people from selling to others goods that are not illegal or in violation of their other practical rules (no selling jewelry, monetary equivalents, etc). This falls into the cate…

Ebay restricts many categories of goods that are otherwise legal to sell, and this is in line with their longstanding policies.

Jewelry and monetary equivalents are sold on Ebay, and they get lower transaction fees than most categories.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#282

Post by brendoelfrendo »

SilverRed wrote: post #228
b0tzzzzzzman wrote: post #161

Are kids actually learning racism is ok from these books or are they enjoying the art and simplistic ideas of the story? Do adults read these books and enthusiastically think.. This author gets it. No, thats just ridiculous. Why does every corporation feel the need to play out these stunts? More free press and discussions on social media. A part in the news cycle. They do it, Because it gets them more in return. If i…

I had a flick through one of the banned books I have and I was unable to fault anything in it. I had to look up what the problem was and then check back and I felt it was a really big stretch to call it offensive.

It makes me wonder: I've seen several people here comment that they didn't think the content was "that offensive" or that it's a "stretch" to call it so. Perhaps the takeaway is not that these things are, therefore, not offensive, but that children exposed to these things internalize them as normal and struggle to acknowledge their offensiveness later in life.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#283

Post by mackal »

cambalache wrote: post #248
o_v_o wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 6 of Dr. Seuss's books, and ones that most people haven't heard of. If you actually look at the content of the books, they are clearly racist and demeaning to those they make caricatures of. And in any case, it was not a sudden "canceling" or anything approaching that. Seuss's estate, managed by his family, made the decision after much deliberation to cease the publication of only six books due to the content. Y…

Does Seuss state own ebay?Do they have a constitutional mandate to stop selling of private copies to be sold between 2 private individuals? Are you going to order Fanta, Volkswagen,Bayern,BASF, Ford and Hugo Boss products to be delisted because they were literally associated with the Nazis?

Banning of the books is consistent with eBay's TOS. This is basically "eBay is enforcing it's TOS WRT Dr Seuss books" kind of story.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#284

Post by [deleted] »

supernova87a wrote: post #55

Now this part is getting a little too carried away. It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with. It is another (and overstepping imo) for Ebay to restrict individual people from selling to others goods that are not illegal or in violation of their other practical rules (no selling jewelry, monetary equivalents, etc). This falls into the cate…

[deleted]

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#285

Post by tired-dev »

tayo42 wrote: post #171
o_v_o wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 6 of Dr. Seuss's books, and ones that most people haven't heard of. If you actually look at the content of the books, they are clearly racist and demeaning to those they make caricatures of. And in any case, it was not a sudden "canceling" or anything approaching that. Seuss's estate, managed by his family, made the decision after much deliberation to cease the publication of only six books due to the content. Y…

You'd think people would be tired of being unnecessarily outraged by everything by now?

You mean like being outraged that people are outraged?

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#286

Post by gnopgnip »

ipsum2 wrote: post #72
notJim wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what happened. This decision has actually been in the works for a while and involved a lot of discussion. > The decision to cease publication and sales of the books was made last year after months of discussion, the company, which was founded by Seuss’ family, told AP https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation-world/ct-aud-nw-dr-... eBay has an existing policy that removes racist materials. They're just appl…

As someone mentioned above, Mein Kampf is still allowed: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m...

No, Mein Kampf is not allowed. Critically annotated versions are allowed. There is a significant difference here

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#287

Post by lawnchair_larry »

Clewza313 wrote: post #174
snicksnak wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hypersensitivity all started at universities. Eventually those bubble-wrapped students will enter the workforce and eventually will end up in higher positions in HR or PR departments driving those decisions. No surprise there.

s/will/has already/, as anybody who's worked at a FAANG in the past 5 years can attest.

Honestly it’s becoming unbearable.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#288

Post by Igelau »

snicksnak wrote: post #108
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #62

About 5 years ago a friend of mine was saying, "yeah, it's bad at the universities but it doesn't affect the real world." Pretty funny how quickly things accelerated. I'd like to get off this ride.

This hypersensitivity all started at universities. Eventually those bubble-wrapped students will enter the workforce and eventually will end up in higher positions in HR or PR departments driving those decisions. No surprise there.

Too late. HR has been moving to make us to stop using: blacklist, whitelist, sanity check, and master. It's a frighteningly difficult exercise in doublethink to take a required security course (produced by a third party) that refers to blacklist and whitelist and then having to self censor your own peer discussions about it.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#290

Post by gwright »

breakfastduck wrote: post #114
supernova87a wrote: post #55

Now this part is getting a little too carried away. It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with. It is another (and overstepping imo) for Ebay to restrict individual people from selling to others goods that are not illegal or in violation of their other practical rules (no selling jewelry, monetary equivalents, etc). This falls into the cate…

Yep. I err on the side of not censoring. However, if they're gonna stop printing a couple of books because of severe racist overtones then whatever. But if they're banning the sale , which then leads to ownership , that's too far. We have to draw a line somewhere. As a heavily left leaning person who feels unnerved about the state of politics at the moment, this decision is extremely discomforting.

> severe racist overtones

I haven't seen a good summary of what parts of the withdrawn books were considered inappropriate, but my understanding is that the stronger objection has been to political cartoons that Theodor Seuss Geisel created.

I've not seen any assertions (never mind evidence) that the children's books contained "severe racist overtones". To be clear, I'm pushing back on the "severe" adjective. There clearly have been assertions about racist overtones in the children's books, just not "severe" racist overtones -- at least that is my understanding.

Unfortunately I guess it would be inappropriate to actually post the objectionable material for discussion since it has been made clear lately that there is no "use-mention" distinction permitted on these matters.

We are therefore rapidly finding ourselves in a situation where the most easily offended person wields immense power to shutdown speech and commerce by simply asserting that something offends them and there is no recourse to challenge their opinion, it must be accepted without discussion.

I find this situation appalling and rapidly approaching frightening.

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